Chương 48: Walk to Town

Day 68 Merlotus 16th (Monday) I slept fitfully that night. I hadn't even put a lock on the door to my cabin so if we had been followed, there was no way to stop the door from being opened. I had definitely kept my rifle loaded and within reach. When the sun finally peeked over the horizon, I got up and walked outside, only to find my two favorite rabbits waiting for their morning scratches. I'd totally forgotten about them. They would have made a ruckus if there had been any danger. They were great animals.

If they weren't always out doing things at night I would let them sleep with me, but unless it was raining, they always opted to stay outside. When the rabbits hopped away, I began looking for eggs. As I was finishing up Colin joined me.

"How you doing this morning bud?" I asked, concerned. He looked as tired as I felt. Even my levels couldn't entirely overcome the lack of sleep and the comedown from an all day adrenaline surge.

"Tired," was his only response. He began helping me gather the last of the eggs to give to his mother, then grabbed his hoe and we walked to the fields to check on things and do our daily weeding. Once we were done, we headed back to the cabin for breakfast. Emily had prepared the usual meal of bacon, eggs, and biscuits. A meal I hadn't yet begun to tire of. Though, I couldn't wait until we added hashbrowns to the mix this fall.

Maybe that would be my in to finally get to use the stove, at least for the first few times we ate them. Emily had apparently slept better than Colin and me. Either that, or she was dealing with the lack of sleep better than we were. My levels couldn't overcome everything it seemed. I really didn't think about the levels as much as I had imagined I would if I ever ended up in this scenario. Since I had done almost all of my leveling the day I entered the world, it was just a background thing most of the time.

Sure, I could lift a lot more now, and the aches and pains I'd accrued over the years were gone now, but I couldn't lift a literal ton, or fly or run like the Flash. Once we'd all sat down to eat, Emily let out a big sigh and said, "So." I gave a tired smile and answered her with, "So indeed." She gave a quick laugh at that.

"So, are you heading into town this morning?" I nodded.

"I believe so. I think we need to make sure to report this. We don't have anything too pressing going on right now, correct?" She shook her head.

"No, nothing that requires your help. You had mentioned that you wanted to help me preserve eggs, and I plan on doing that for most of the day. But there will be plenty of other times to help with that. Plus, it is a woman's job, not a man's." I gave a grimace smile at her last sentence.

"You know I don't really care about that. I'll never skip out on a job because it's only supposed to be done by women. But still, I should get going soon. I plan on stopping at Brendan's place first to give him a heads up. Then I'll walk to town. Hopefully, I can talk to the mayor and the militia captain. I'll probably sleep at the inn since it'll be midnight before I'd be back otherwise."

"Makes sense," she said, "Will you grab butter and bacon? Those should be the only things we need, and you can carry plenty back." I nodded.

"Sure thing. Alright I'll grab my gun, and then head to town." I made my way to my cabin and grabbed my gun and ammunition belt, as well as some bread that I carefully put in the pack that had the wolf's paw in it. I thought about bringing my axe as well, but decided against it. It would make me look ridiculous and paranoid. I definitely planned to buy a large hunting knife when I made it to town, though. I had plenty of gold to make it to harvest, and Colin said his only cost 10 gold.

After that, I started the walk to town. Even at 8 a. m. the weather was nice. It was 68 degrees outside, and sunny. Since I was unlikely to encounter many people, I threw on a pair of sunglasses to help with the glare. The walk was mostly boring. I would have loved to have access to my library of audiobooks or podcasts that had been on my last phone. I had kicked myself more than once for being too lazy to swap over all of the stuff to my new phone. Oh well, too late to cry over spilled milk.

My path to the Newton Homestead was pretty easy. The ground was firm enough that there were no muddy areas in the wagon tracks that made up the road. The grass wasn't very tall where the tracks were, but it was up to waist high in many areas I was walking through. That certainly made me a little nervous. It would be really easy for something to sneak up on me. The light breeze caused the heads of the prairie grasses to make a rustling sound.

I could hear hawk cries in the distance, and there were plenty of insects adding to the noise. Stolen novel; please report. I had always assumed that pre industrial life would have been much quieter than modern life had been, and in some ways that was certainly true. There were no vehicles making noise, or crowds of people where I was, but there was so much more wildlife than I was used to that filled in a lot of the background noise.

We had lost a lot of biodiversity on Earth, I knew that, but there were still so many more insects here than I expected. Crickets and grasshoppers made their rasping noises in the grasses, and bees were buzzing. I could also hear prairie dogs chirping. It made the walk to the Newtons go by a lot faster than I had imagined it would, even if I did have occasional fits of nerves when something rustled the grass a little too close for comfort. When I made it to the Newtons' I was greeted by their guard dogs.

They were much friendlier than on my first visit. They still guided me to the farmhouse, but there weren't any growls. Ginny greeted me as I made it to their front porch, which ran along the entire front of their much larger farmhouse.

"How're you today, John Jacobson, then? Brendan's away for the day. He's takin' cheese an' butter out t'some o' the homesteads nearer town, like. We weren't expectin' you, mind. What's brought you our way?"

"Well," I said.

"Colin and I decided to map out the wilderness to the west of our homestead because he hadn't been seeing any deer or elk lately. We didn't see anything out there either, until we were attacked by wargs."

"Oh my!" Ginny exclaimed.

"An' you're both alright, are you?" Concern was clear in her voice. I nodded, "we're both fine. I killed one and Colin's shot scared the other off. I just stopped by to tell you guys about it, then I'm heading to town to tell the mayor and militia captain." Ginny nodded, still showing worry for us.

"Aye, tha's a good call, that is. Been a few incidents like yours over the last couple o' years now. Shouldn't be anythin' too big, mind — there's wargs about what got loose when the goblins were beaten. They can cause a bit o' trouble wi' the deer when they're in the area, see." Her words certainly made me feel more at ease than I had been for the last thirty-six hours.

"Ah, that's good to know," I said, feeling sheepish.

"I was worried we would have goblins on our doorstep soon." She shook her head, "we should be fine if it was only the two you saw, like." We exchanged a few more pleasantries, and she made a not-so-subtle hint at me making an honest woman of Emily, but I was back on the road less than fifteen minutes after I stopped in. I was feeling a lot less stressed out after speaking with Ginny, and I now had some cheese to go along with the bread I was going to eat for lunch.

I ate my bread and cheese around 1, and then just focused on the scenery, and tried to keep a brisk pace to eat up the remaining twenty-two miles to town. I approached the western gates of Weston at 3 p. m., I'd made excellent time. Sean Hawker greeted me as I made my way to the western gates.

"Mr Jacobson, what brings you to the town today? Militia duty isn't for another two weeks. I smiled and shook my head.

"I know, I feel kind of stupid about this after meeting with Mrs Newton, but Colin and I were attacked by a couple of wargs out in the wilderness beyond the border." Their faces showed more concern than Ginny's had. I started to worry again.

"You're sure it was only a couple?" Sean said. I nodded, "Well, if it was more than that we never saw them. One was in front of us, then another attacked from behind. I shot it in the eye and then killed it with my axe. Colin shot at his but I don't think he hit it. It ran off. I did cut off its paw as proof just in case." Drew snorted at that.

"Why would we need a warg paw? Got no reason not to believe you." Sean looked at him like he was an idiot.

"There is a bounty, you should know that.

'Ave to bring proof. A paw is as good as anything, it certainly isn't livin' withoutout it." Drew's cheeks colored but he just scowled and nodded. Sean shook his head at Drew again, "Go tell the captain, he'll give you the 5 gold bounty and you can file an official report." I did as I was told and made my way to the barracks. Captain Castell was nowhere to be seen when I walked in so I shouted, "Hello? Captain?"

After a couple of moments he came out of the weapons room at the back and gave me a blank stare, saying nothing. After a few awkward moments of silence, I just decided to start.

"Hello sir, I wanted to report an incident with a couple of wargs." He looked at me for a moment, then replied, "You do not have to call me sir outside of drill." When it became clear he wasn't going to say anything else I spoke again.

"Can I call you sir outside of drill even if I don't have to?" His face still expressionless, he said, "Yes." Starting to understand I wasn't getting a monologue out of him, I decided I had better say what I came to say.

"Alright, well. Colin Lloyd and I went to the wilderness to the west of us because Colin hadn't seen any sign of large game for at least the last two weeks. We didn't see anything for a day's hike and then three miles from the mountains proper we were attacked by two wargs. I killed one and the other was scared off."

"Very good," Castell said in the same calm voice.

"I assume you have proof?" I nodded and got the large bloody paw out of my bag. He took the paw and gave it a perfunctory glance before saying, "It does indeed look like a warg's paw. If you would give me the coordinates from your UI, I will send a team of scouts out to search the area. Hopefully it is nothing, after all, there are still wild wargs roaming the wilds."

"Do they usually disrupt wildlife this bad?" I asked. He shrugged.

"They most certainly can. It sounds like an extreme case for only two wargs if young Mister Lloyd has seen no game in over two weeks, but deer and elk are not idiots and wargs are apex predators. As I said, I will be sending a team out to scout out the area." I pulled up my UI and saw he had sent me a map request. I accepted his request and he nodded. I really needed to go through my UI one of these days. He handed me my 5 gold and I left the barracks.

It was still pretty early, but I didn't want to be walking home in the dark. I decided to make my way to the inn and have a couple of beers and bullshit with Ben and Janice if they weren't too busy. I'd have dinner around 5, and then a couple more beers and dinner. Sounded like a nice little evening to me!